Prelude to Death
by Onimiman
Summary: Prequel to one of my previous fics, "The Second Swarm War," which is to explain why Anji wasn't there in that fic or any of the rest of "The Return of Plagueis" quadrilogy.


Allana laughed gleefully as she ran through Shedu Maad's forests with her pet nexu Anji chasing after her. The two of them had been going at this for the past ten minutes, already a sixth of the way through the break that Allana was afforded from her chores at the Jedi Temple. Neither of them had a care in the galaxy right now; no wars were being fought, no crises needing to be solved on some world or another, not even an assassin from one of the treacherous Duchas trying to target Allana for being the Chume'da.

Of course, that quickly came to an end when the girl came to an abrupt halt thanks to a prickling tingle from her danger senses. Simultaneously, Anji also stopped in her tracks and looked back to her owner, her snout sniffing the air for the threat that Allana herself was already sensing.

Immediately, Allana swiveled around and unleashed a blast of the Force channeled from both arms up toward the canopy of the forest. The invisible wave struck at a tree branch there... a branch holding aloft a masked assassin cloaked head to toe in a black synthsuit.

As soon as the branch was ripped from its parent tree, the assassin leaped off and allowed herself - Allana could tell by the bodily curves from what she saw - to plummet the rest of the way to the ground meters before Allana. She landed in a roll before breaking out of her resultant crouch, branding a vibroblade from each hand that slipped out of each sleeve.

In quick response, Allana immediately unhooked and ignited her lightsaber from her belt, falling into a defensive stance with Anji joining her growling, at the assassin.

The disguised would-be killer of the Chume'da struck out with her left vibroblade at her target's blade while moving the right vibroblade in Anji's direction. Allana parried the blow while her nexu dodged out of the way of the near-indestructible weapon before leaping up at the assassin. However, the latter quickly broke away from Allana to roll out of the way of the pouncing nexu, coming up in a crouch and swiveling around to meet the incoming animal again.

By the time Anji was only a few centimeters from the assassin, however, the nexu stopped and continued to growl up at the assassin, who hesitated before striking both vibroblades out simultaneously. Anji ducked her head beneath what would have decapitated her in a scissor-like fashion, then leaped up to bite at the assassin's left arm; thanks to Allana's grandparents trusting Anji not to harm the girl while they were on their break, the nexu's bite was unrestrained.

Almost at the same time, Allana rushed in to take advantage of her would-be killer's distraction and struck to impale her. But the assassin was still alert enough to use her free arm to block off her target's attack, and followed it up with a few more blocks as Anji continued to gnaw on her left arm.

Several seconds of this passed before the assassin seemed to have enough, and swung the arm that the nexu was biting on toward a nearby tree. Anji unleashed her jaws in an instant from that arm and allowed herself to soar straight past the tree before landing sliding on her feet along the forest floor. The animal then turned back to the direction of the assassin, who was now completely occupying both her good and wounded arms in swinging her vibroblades against Allana's lightsaber.

But then the assassin managed to disengage from Allana again and roll off to the opposite side. She then allowed herself to collapse on her back and let Anji, who now soared through the air, try to strike at her again.

And in one split second, the assassin swung her good arm and slit the nexu's throat. The animal then went flying past and collapsed in a heap on the ground several meters away.

"Anji!" Allana cried. "No!"

The assassin then leaped back up to her feet and charged back for Allana again. But the Chume'da struck back against the vibroblades aggressively. The assassin was only able to hold her ground for a few seconds before she was forced to begin stepping back from the vicious onslaught.

The masked killer was able to continue holding her own, if not her ground, for another half-minute before the vibroblade in her wounded hand was knocked out, leaving her with the vibroblade in her good hand to defend herself.

Another few seconds, and that vibroblade was also knocked out of the assassin's hand. One second, and her head was quickly removed from her body. The headless corpse fell back in a heap at Allana's feet, who now breathed heavily as she first regarded the decapitated body before looking over the masked head off at the base of a nearby tree.

Allana's face then fell from angry determination to saddened hopefulness as she turned away from her dead opponent and headed for her fallen pet. She knelt down at Anji's body and lifted the upper part of her body a few inches off the ground. The nexu was now breathing shallowly as blood continued to leak from her opened throat. Allana tried vainly to staunch the flow as she hurriedly ripped a bottom piece of her shirt and placed it on the fatal wound, tears now flowing freely from her eyes.

A quarter of a minute passed, and then Anji was no more.

And with that, Allana let her pet's corpse limp freely to the forest floor and looked up to the clear daytime sky, letting the sobs of grief wrack her body for a full minute before letting out a pained shriek carrying over from her sobs allowing her to fall back upon Anji's body.

She stayed there for several minutes before an airspeeder came rushing over to the scene of Anji's death. Allana looked up to find the speeder powering down quickly before her grandparents came rushing out to assess the scene and come over to wordlessly comfort her.

Minutes later, Allana fell asleep, tired of her sobs, which allowed Han to gather his granddaughter up in his arms and carry her to the back of the speeder. It wasn't long before the vehicle began heading back to the Jedi Temple at a more steady pace.


End file.
